Tufts now offers EndNote Installations to Students, Faculty, and Staff!

Current Tufts students, faculty, researchers, and staff can arrange for a free installation of the latest version of EndNote software on their own personal computers! This will be done by a member of the university’s desktop support staff. Visit the Tufts Technology EndNote page for more information.

Introduction to EndNote

EndNote is a powerful software program that collects, stores and organizes references for books, journal articles, and other materials that you've collected and then automatically converts those references into a properly formatted bibliography. It is fairly easy to use, reliable, and well-documented. EndNote can:

import references directly from many of the Tufts Libraries' databases

create a properly-formatted bibliography that conforms to your selected output style, including APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, or any one of hundreds of other formats

format in-text citations, endnotes, and footnotes in the documents you are writing

serve as your own searchable reference database

organize references into custom groups, enabling you to track your sources by topic, course, book chapters, or other criteria of your choosing

Alongside tracking literature citations, EndNote stores references to figures and tables as well as links to websites and downloaded Acrobat pdf files. It provides Unicode support for foreign languages for processing and displaying multilingual text. In addition, EndNote provides a high level of customizability, both for the EndNote interface and for your references and reports. All these features make your research and writing process more efficient.

Acquiring EndNote

Available in both Windows and Macintosh editions, EndNote is a software program that you purchase and install on your own computer. Current Tufts' students, faculty, researchers, and staff can arrange for an EndNote installation on their own personal computers by Tufts Technology Services (the installation must be removed if your Tufts affiliation ends). Software licenses can be purchased from the EndNote website; through this site,you also can download a trial version.

Note: While the Tufts Library staff provides training in, and consultation about, the general use of EndNote and compatible databases, it does not provide IT support or assistance with technical issues involving your computer, browser, or word-processing software. It does not provide users with EndNote licenses and EndNote is not installed in any shared computers in Tisch Library. For assistance with such issues, contact EndNote's own technical support.

Getting Started with EndNote

The first step in working with EndNote is to create your own EndNote library. To do this:

Launch the EndNote software

Select File Menu > New…

In the resulting New Reference Library window, specify a library name (with a .enl extension) and the location for your library (the location should NOT be in the EndNote software installation folder but in a location where you normally store your working files). Then click Save.

Tips

You can specify which EndNote libraries automatically open when you
launch EndNote. Select Edit Menu > Preferences > Libraries and
choose one of the options listed in the When EndNote Starts pull-down
menu.

EndNote lets you create as many libraries as you want and their size in
MB is limited only by the amount of storage space on the drive(s) where
they’re stored. The decision to create multiple EndNote libraries
should be based on your research needs and methodology. You can start
with a single library and organize items into Custom Groups, which are
virtual folders that can represent, for example, contents for various
courses, book chapters, and/or various research projects. If you
decide later that a single library should be split into multiple
libraries, EndNote makes it easy for you to do so, either by using the
File Menu > Save a Copy… command or by “dragging and dropping”
references among different open EndNote libraries.